


wasted teen au snippet

by orphan_account



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, M/M, wasted teen au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 18:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20362936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: written years ago based on the wasted teen AU by Vanitasaurus





	wasted teen au snippet

At first Max thinks he’s just tripping, ‘cause he’s definitely not sober yet. There’s a dizziness that keeps him from focusing and his limbs feel like lead. And, more importantly, the figure in front of him has been the most common of his hallucinations ever since he can remember. But then it walks in his direction and speaks up.

“Hello Max! Look at what I brought! I thought it could help cheer the place up!” David says with a smile that Max can hear in his voice, but can’t confirm with his eyes because he’s too busy staring and what David has in his hands. 

It’s a fucking house plant.

Not a single day went by when Max didn’t regret showing David where he lived. He had thought that seeing that shithole he called home might scare the man off for good, make him finally realize Max was beyond hope. And at first, he thought it had worked. David’s dismayed silence the first time he came had given Max a masochistic sense of satisfaction, even as his eyes stung in a familiar way, his hand sneaking to his hoodie pocket where a timely joint had been forgotten the day before. But of course he had been wrong, as usual. The man had just started showing up every odd day, and Max had started to- to anticipate it. To have fucking anxiety attacks when he didn’t show up for too long. To sit there long after the man had left, replaying the conversation in his head, the occasional touches, the pathetic attempts at conversation, the smell of his cheap cologne-

And now this. Max didn’t have the energy to do anything besides letting his head fall back in the dirty sheets and grunt in annoyance. 

David laughed a little, and the sound only irritated him further. He heard David coming in, walking around the garbage and clothes Max knew were on the floor. Once, just once, David suggested coming over to help Max clean the place up. The mere thought of that happening had worked Max up so much that he screamed at David like he hadn’t ever since that last summer camp, and so it had never been brought up again. Nonetheless, some impulses were stronger than others, and David seemed incapable of resisting picking some shit up from the floor and putting them on more appropriate places when he thought Max wasn’t looking. For the sake of his own peace of mind, Max let it go.  _ Whatever. Makes my life easier _ , he lied to himself, half-heartedly. In fact, it just made it all the more obvious when David didn’t visit for longer than a few days, Max’s clothes piling up on the floor like testimonials to his continuous failure to be a human being.  _ God _ , it was too fuckin early for this. He rubbed his face with his hands, then stared at a ray of sun that peeked from between his shitty curtains. Distantly, he realized David was still talking.

“... and this one doesn’t need a lot of water! Back when I was- Back- well, you know- taking care of the garden always made me feel better, plants have a calming effect on people! Especially when you haven’t been outdoors for too long - though in all fairness, just visiting the woods is probably…”

_ Fucking god.  _

Max propped himself up on his elbows. “For fuck’s sake, David, I have a hangover, will you shut up?!”

David snapped his mouth shut like it was a clam, and that was even worse. Max’s shitty everyday memory didn’t extend to the distant past, which often seemed more real than whatever fucked up shit he was going through presently. He remembered with alarming clarity how, once, it was near impossible to get David to shut up when he got going like that. In that distant past, no verbal attack was vicious enough to break through David’s optimism, and yet now…

He refused to acknowledge the sudden tension in the air. Instead he rolled out of bed gingerly and approached, still a little stoked from whatever he had had the night before, before crashing. He didn’t even fucking remember anymore. Good shit, good shit. 

“What’s that?” He said, approaching the chair where David had put the plant and where he could also see a paper bag. He realized he was shirtless, and that alarmed him. Max hated physical contact in general, and wouldn’t be caught this sober and naked near anyone, ever. He also suspected he smelled from two showerless days. He scowled.

He scowled harder when he saw David was pointedly looking the other way. God, this was the fucking worst, the fucking worst, the fuc--

“I- um, I brought you some food! Figured you’d be sleeping in - as you seem to do, hahaha - not that, um, not that it’s a bad thing! But, well, just in case-”

Max picked the bag and sure enough, there was a sandwich and an apple and even a little juice box. His stomach churned, but if it was hunger or disgust, he didn’t know. He was so used to both by now. 

That was the most classic children’s lunch he had ever seen. He could all but see his dumbass classmates in school, all with brown paper bags and a packed sandwich and a fucking apple and some cheap ass juice. It was not just that he had never had one - it was also the fucking reminder that to David, he was still a fucking child. He pushed the paper bag against David’s chest, and made it back to bed, feeling too tired to deal with that.

“Max! I’m - sorry- have you eaten? It was probably presumptuous of m-”

“Feed me.”

David blinked. He would have blinked at himself too, if he could. He plopped down on his ass onto the mattress, torso propped up by his elbows, one leg dangling out and another bent, his heel catching on the edge of the mattress. Part of his brain was repeating “where the hell did that come from?” over and over in a panic, but another part - a meaner, wilder part that always won when he was high, no fucking contest - just didn’t give a shit. 

“Um. What… I don’t…?...”

“I said,” He repeated, looking straight into David’s eyes and getting a perverse satisfaction from seeing him flinch and look away, “Feed me. I don’t fucking know. You want to baby me all the fucking time, and I’m still too high from last night. Morning. Whatever. I can’t feed myself, David. Whatever. If you want me to eat, feed me.” Ah yes, that was it. Fucking David up. Messing with him. Making him miserable, making his life hell. Now that seems familiar, just like old times. David seemed at a complete loss, and that served him fucking right. To have the gall to waltz back into Max’s life like some god damn savior. Trying to talk to him, to… God, fuck that.

And yet. 

Max was startled when David approached him. They had sat in silence for so long that he had gotten distracted in his own head, but there was the weight of the man abruptly sitting down next to him on his filthy bed, taking out a swiss army knife - Max’s heart tightened with the burden of more childhood memories from camp - and cutting down the apple into small bite sizes. David was forcing a smile with all his strength, and Max felt a repulsive, overwhelming wave of affection wash over him there and then, at the tenacity of this man in not giving up, in trying, in trying, in trying. Max wanted to let him succeed, for once, to let him get closer and bond, and to let him take Max out to see trees or plants or whatever, and his eyes filled with water and he hated himself so much there and then, he was so fucking small and unworthy, such a waste of time… he batted the knife away from David’s hand, getting cut in the process, but the clunk of metal and bits of apple hitting the floor and David’s alarmed yelp were not enough to deter him when he pinned David down on the mattress and - Max had wanted to scare him, to hurt him or attack him or fuck him, but he was crying all of a sudden, violent sobs wrecking his throath and leaving him breathless and pathetic on top of the only person who had ever wanted to love him.

It was not  _ fair _ .

“W-what is not fair, Max?” he heard David whisper thinly, and he wanted to move, but the lack of food was probably getting to him, because his limbs felt weaker than ever . “What’s wrong?”

“S-shut up,” Max said, too weak to mean it. “Go away,” he continued, even as his fingers closed on tight fists on the fabric of David’s shirt, getting wet with his spit and tears. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” he went on like a prayer between sobs, even as the tension left his shoulders when David placed timid hands on his back, kindness he had always craved and never deserved. The heat of David’s body was overpowering, and they stayed like that for a long time, and Max worried that he would never stop crying.

When Max next came to himself, he was alone. The small cut on his hand and blanket that had been carefully put over his body didn’t let him think that he had dreamed the afternoon events, and sure enough, there it was: a brown paper bag with food inside, a note from David right next to it. The floor of his apartment, if not clean, was clear of laundry and bits of apple, though the hint of a sweet smell remained. His phone was mercifully out of battery.

Max stayed in bed for a long time, with his stomach rumbling and head spinning. He was exhausted and empty. 

He stood up, finally, and got David’s folded note, which he stared at for a long time before crumpling it and letting it fall on the floor without reading it. He smelled the sandwich and his empty stomach begged him to eat, but he threw that on the floor as well, before finding a hoodie and leaving his house, out of the darkness and into the night. The breeze was cold and helped him push aside all other unnecessary thoughts and feelings, and focus on the one thing that he knew to be certain.

For once in his life, he knew what to do.


End file.
